That morning, Febuary 7, the Great Hall was oddly silent. Normally, it would be buzzing with chatter and laughter. This breakfast-time, though, although just about every student in the school was fitted into the hall, the atmosphere was one of muffled silence. Only a few nervous titters broke the stillness.
Sirius Black tensed. Normally, he would have welcomed the way that every eye in the hall fell on him the moment he opened the doors, and the way that his arrival had created this vacant, expectant silence.
Today, though, he wasn't so glad of the attention.
Today, though, it was for all the wrong reasons.
Today, it was because his hair – his beautiful, perfect, raven-wing hair – was pink. Bright neon bloody pink.
Giving the titterers a glare which combined all the haughtiness of a Black with the sheer murderousness of an angry Marauder, he collapsed in his seat at the Gryffindor table, daring anyone to comment. Incredibly enough, nobody did. At least, not to him.
Moodily, he grabbed a slice of toast and began attacking it with the butter. If anyone asked, he decided, he was going to call it a Valentine's celebration and be damned. Because things like this did not happen to Sirius Black; Sirius Black made them happen to other people. Other people without such nice hair.
"Where the hell's Prongs?" he demanded of his toast. The toast, of course, didn't answer, but Sirius didn't care. He wanted somebody to laugh with him, not at him. Also, someone to help him murder Remus, whose fault this all was.
"Godric's balls," he said morosely, plucking at his ruined hair. "Where the hell are you, Prongs?"
As a matter of fact, Prongs was right outside the doors to the Great Hall. His face was firmly in his hands.
"I'm not doing it!" he groaned. "I'm not going in! I don't care if I have to starve!"
His stomach begged to differ, and made it very clear. It rumbled loudly, sending a tight ball of nausea into his already churning gut, and he groaned even louder, torn between which was the lesser of two evils. For a moment, he hesitated in an agony of indecision, then, one arm crossed over his chest, snapped, "Oh, bugger this!" and lunged through the doors before he could change his mind.
The reason for the arm and for the hesitation was very clear from the instant he came into view. James Potter appeared, overnight, to have spontaneously sprouted... balloon holders.
Which is to say, funbags.
He was rather better-endowed than he had been.
He had got himself some double-Ds.
In short, and not to put too fine a point on it, there was a definite suggestion of… womanly parts.
This also explained the fact that his voice had raised the best part of an octave – a disability which he was struggling to avoid, and failing – the equally undeniable fact that his robes didn't fit him all that well and, to put it delicately… sagged slightly at the front, and the fact that his glasses, which had suited him perfectly the night before, suddenly looked clunky, and, well, over-masculine.
All of this was, he considered, made worse by the fact that he was actually quite a pretty girl.
He was never going to hear the end of this. Never.
So he stalked up the hall with an expression that overshadowed Sirius' by a factor of ten. Even look at me wrong, this expression seemed to suggest, even smile, and you'd better watch your food for the next century. And your drink. And anything else the King of Pranks has any chance of working his arts on, which is everything.
Even despite this dire warning, though, there were several nervous titters, and a whole fleet of sniggers from the Slytherin table.
"I'm going to kill Moony," he hissed, collapsing into the seat next to Sirius, who was struggling – with a fairly impressive level of success – to hold back hysterical laughter.
"Jamie, you have no idea how good your timing is, how hilarious you look, or how much better you're making me feel."
"Shut up," James groaned, mortified. "Do me a favour, Sirius Pink?"
"Anything for a pretty lady."
"When we get our hands on Moony, let me kill him. Please."
Sirius paused to consider this.
"Only if I can hold him."
James just groaned again, one arm still crossed over his chest, and grabbed the toast off Sirius' plate. "I need that more than you," he said bluntly, taking a big bite.
"At least it can't get worse," Sirius suggested.
It was around that point that they heard laughter behind them, and James groaned. "Did you have to say that?" he demanded, putting his face in his hands.
As if it wasn't bad enough that he was a girl, as if it wasn't bad enough that he was a pretty girl, he was a pretty girl in front of Lily Evans.
She snorted, but really did a rather admirable job of not bursting out laughing. "Hey, Jamie. Um… I mean James," she corrected herself, smirking, when she realised how it sounded.
"Uh… hi, Lily." James attempted to lower his voice to his usual pitch, overshot by about half an octave, and sounded exactly like what he was – a girl trying to sound like a boy. He was blushing for the first time in God only knew how long, the usually unflappable Marauder now absolutely humiliated. Merlin's ghost, it had to be her, didn't it? Once again, he was never, ever, ever going to hear the end of this.
Accidentally letting out a rather unladylike snort – it really was a terrible attempt at a man's voice - she turned to Sirius, sitting down between the two Marauders with one eyebrow raised. "Nice hair, Sirius. Valentine's celebration?"
Sirius nodded solemnly, and she laughed.
"Okay, so what really happened?"
Sirius and James exchanged glances. In the end, it was James, now almost crimson, who answered for him. "We were making a potion, and we made the mistake of letting Remus stir."
"It got my hair, and apparently James' chest – have you tried a Deflator on that, Prongs?"
"You should have seen it before," James groaned, letting his head flop forwards onto the table with a solid thud. "This is three Deflators on, if you must know. Doesn't seem to make any difference."
"We haven't seen Pete or Moony since, though, so I don't know what's up with them," Sirius added, trying his hardest to keep a straight face. "But it must be bad, or they'd be here. Especially Peter. And Moony got the worst of it, I think, so he's probably in a terrible state."
"If he isn't," James mumbled into the table, "he will be when I catch up with him."
Lily laughed again, taking a slice of toast and buttering it demurely. James looked as though he would like nothing more than to sink into the floor and never be seen again.
After a moment, Sirius cleared his throat. "James, have you tried a Shrinking Charm?"
James looked up sharply. His face was crimson, and studded here and there with toast crumbs. "Sirius, I've tried everything. How stupid do you think I am?"
"Clearly, very." Sirius sighed, rolling his eyes, and pulled out his wand. "Okay. Hold still, there's a good girl."
"Sirius Pink, I am going to kill you!" James snarled, but he sat up, staying as still as he could.
"Reducio!" Sirius waved his wand, aiming very carefully at James' (snicker) cleavage. "There, did that work?"
James shrugged, peering down the front of his robes, and then shook his head. "Sorry. That's still a D, at least. Oh, Godric's balls…" With a dull thud, he flopped forwards onto the table. "Somebody kill me now."
"Not until we've killed Remus."
Lily snorted despite herself. "You're not killing Remus. Or James."
"Aw." Sirius pouted. "Not even a little bit? He did ask me to."
"It's tempting. James, I think you should probably go to the hospital wing."
"Um… Lily? Can I… ask you a favour, first?" James asked the table, feeling the heat flush his face.
She frowned. "Sure. Ask away."
"Um," he said again, brilliantly. "Thisisn'tacome-onoranythingIpromisebut…" At that point, he had to stop to take a deep breath, calm himself down a little, and try not to listen to what he was saying. "But, um, erm, do you, um, have any… support?"
She raised an eyebrow, not understanding. "Eh?"
"Um, any… holders." He straightened up, keeping his eyes averted from her, just enough to gesture vaguely at his chest.
Sirius wiped tears of laughter from his eyes, forcing a straight face, and took it upon himself to explain.
"He needs a bra."